Web conferencing is set to become one of IT’s biggest service offerings, and in companies where it is a facility they wish to employ, the managers who have the responsibility for administering the IT function in the company will naturally have concerns about maintaining control.
By using an ASP or a remotely web hosted conferencing system, the IT function has to relinquish a certain amount control by deferring to the needs and system requirements of the external service provider. This can have serious implications for the proper control, and perhaps just as importantly, the maintenance of the user’s in house IT system. Why should any user be at the whim of the ASP whenever they decide they have a need to carry out some routine maintenance or implement some critical updates?
An IT manager needs to have complete control which enables him/her to action essential maintenance to all parts of the IT infrastructure as when he/she deems it right to do so. This is one of the main reasons why deploying an in-house web conferencing facility that the company actually owns is becoming the best choice solution for many companies.
The other issue with using an external ASP for web conferencing is the concern about security. When an organization deploys its own in-house web conference system, it does so behind its own firewall system and is not reliant on the internet in any way. This in itself is a big plus as it leaves all the protection in place that is safeguarding the internal IT network.
It is then possible for the IT department to allow external participation in the web conferencing services to be granted access via encryption through either SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or the more recent TLS (Transport Layer Security). Also, through internal deployment, any ready made presentations and even the archive records of previous conferences are all held in perfect safety behind that firewall, so everything is properly protected.
So when organizations go shopping for the appropriate web conferencing product, safety and security must be as high on the list of prerequisites as system performance specification. Systems like the RHUB TurboMeeting 4.0 product meet all of the criteria safety conscious IT managers throw at them. They even protect against interactive conferencing where the participants are sending data back along the link. They also have the programming to navigate around the different firewall protocols that the various delegated PCs or Macs have loaded.
RHUB and one or two of their main competitors supply products that provide best in class secure web conferencing backed up with excellent technical support should you need it.